“Two minutes after nine o’clock.”
“How can you be so certain of the time?”
“Look at the fax from Julian Isherwood. I was told to arrive at precisely nine o’clock. I don’t make a habit of being late for appointments, Sergeant-Major Baer.”
The detective smiled in admiration. He was a prompt man, and he appreciated punctuality and attention to detail in others, even if he suspected them of murder.
“And when you arrived at the villa?”
“I used the security phone, but no one answered. So I called Mr. Isherwood in London. He told me that the person who was supposed to meet me had been called out of town suddenly.”
“Is that what he said? ‘Called out of town’?”
“Something like that.”
“And this Mr. Isherwood gave you the codes?”
“Yes.”
“Who gave Mr. Isherwood the codes?”
“I don’t know. The man’s lawyer, I suppose.”
“Did you write the codes down?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t necessary.”
“Why not?”
“Because I memorized the codes.”
“Really? You must have a very good memory, Signore Delvecchio.”
THE detective left the room for fifteen minutes. When he returned, he had a cup of coffee for himself and nothing for Gabriel. He sat down and resumed where he had left off.
“These arrangements seem peculiar to me, Signore Delvecchio. Is it customary that you are kept unaware of the artist until you arrive to begin work on a restoration?”
“No, it isn’t customary. In fact, it’s unusual.”
“Indeed.” He sat back and folded his arms, as though this admission were tantamount to a signed confession. “Is it also customary that you are not given the name of the owner of a painting you are restoring?”
“It’s not unheard of.”
“Rolfe.” He looked at Gabriel to see if the name produced any reaction, which it did not. “The person who owns the painting is named Augustus Rolfe. He is also the man you murdered in the villa.”
“I didn’t murder anyone, and you know it. He was killed long before I arrived in Zurich. I was still on the train when he was murdered. A hundred people can place me on that train.”
The detective seemed unmoved by Gabriel’s argument. He sipped his coffee. “Tell me what happened after you entered the villa.”
Gabriel recounted the chain of events in a dull monotone: the dark entrance hall, groping for the light switch, the unsigned letter in the bowl on the table, the strange odor in the air as he entered the drawing room, the discovery of the body.
“Did you see the painting?”
“Yes.”
“Before you saw the body or after?”
“After.”
“And how long did you look at it?”
“I don’t know. A minute or so.”
“You’ve just discovered a dead body, but you stop to look at a painting.” The detective didn’t seem to know what to make of this piece of information. “Tell me about this painter”-he looked down at his notes-“Raphael. I’m afraid I know little of art.”
Gabriel could tell he was lying but decided to play along. For the next fifteen minutes, he delivered a detailed lecture on the life and work of Raphael: his training and his influences, the innovations of his technique, the lasting relevance of his major works. By the time he had finished, the policeman was staring into the remains of his coffee, a beaten man.
“Would you like me to go on?”
“No, thank you. That was very helpful. If you did not kill Augustus Rolfe, why did you leave the villa without telephoning the police? Why did you try to flee Zurich?”
“I knew the circumstances would appear suspicious, so I panicked.”
The detective looked him over skeptically, as if he did not quite believe Mario Delvecchio was a man given to panic. “How did you get from the Zurichberg to the Hauptbahnhof?”
“I took the tram.”
Baer made a careful inspection of Gabriel’s seized possessions. “I don’t see a tram ticket among your things. Surely you purchased a ticket before you boarded the streetcar?”
Gabriel shook his head: guilty as charged. Baer’s eyebrows shot up. The notion that Gabriel had boarded a tram ticketless seemed more horrifying to him than the possibility that he had shot an old man in the head.
“That’s a very serious offense, Signore Delvecchio! I’m afraid you’re going to be fined fifty francs!”
“I’m deeply sorry.”
“Have you been to Zurich before?”
“No, never.”
“Then how did you know which tram would take you to the Hauptbahnhof?”
“It was a lucky guess, I suppose. It was heading in the right direction, so I got on.”
“Tell me one more thing, Signore Delvecchio. Did you make any purchases while you were in Zurich?”
“Purchases?”
“Did you buy anything? Did you do any shopping?”
“I bought a pair of shoes.”
“Why?”
“Because while I was waiting to get into the villa, my shoes became soaked in the rain.”
“You were panicked. You were afraid to go to the police, desperate to get out of Zurich, but you took time to get new shoes because your feet were wet?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back in his chair and knocked on the door. It opened, and an arm appeared, holding an evidence bag containing Gabriel’s shoes.
“We found these in a toilet at the Hauptbanhof, buried in a rubbish bin. I suspect they’re yours. I also suspect that they will match the set of bloody footprints we found in the entrance hall and the walkway of the villa.”
“I’ve already told you I was there. The footprints, if they do match those shoes, prove nothing.”
“Rather nice shoes to simply toss away in the toilet of a rail station.
